Chapter 444: Nothing Was the Plan
Doing nothing turned out to be harder than it sounded.
For the first ten minutes, I kept waiting for Chenghai to pull out another bag, point toward something hidden along the shore, or tell me the boat was only the first part of whatever he had planned.
He didn’t.
He sat beside me with one arm around my waist and ate pieces of fruit whenever I held them near his mouth. The boat drifted slowly across the lake while sunlight moved over the water.
That was it.
I looked inside the bag again.
Chenghai glanced down. "What are you looking for?"
"The rest."
"There isn’t any."
"You packed food, towels, sunscreen, clean clothes, and a boat."
"The boat was already here."
"That doesn’t make this less suspicious."
His hand moved slowly across my stomach. "You wanted another surprise?"
I thought about the swing, the mud track, the creek, and the porch.
My legs still remembered the porch.
"No," I admitted. "I just don’t trust you anymore."
Chenghai took another peach slice from my fingers and ate it.
That apparently ended the conversation.
I settled back against him and stretched my legs across the bench. The boat rocked beneath us, but not enough to make me nervous anymore. Every few minutes, the wind pushed us in a new direction and the trees along the shore shifted around us.
I couldn’t see the dock.
That should have bothered me.
Instead, I ate another peach and watched a dragonfly land on the front of the boat.
It stayed there until Chenghai moved his foot. Then it flew away and disappeared across the water.
"I’ve never been on a boat," I said.
Chenghai’s hand stopped for a second. "Never?"
"I didn’t have a lot of boat opportunities."
"You lived near water."
"That doesn’t mean people were giving away boats."
He looked over the lake. "You could’ve rented one. Or asked Zhenlan to buy you one."
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Neither one of us were admitting to it, but he knew it, and I knew it, I wasn’t the Rouxi that grew up with them hovering over her.
That shut him up.
Instead of asking my guardian to buy me a boat, I had dropped out of school, worked whatever jobs I could find, and spent most of my time trying to keep my family fed before the apocalypse. Renting a boat for fun had never appeared anywhere on the list.
In my last life, the only boats I saw belonged to people escaping flooded cities. Most were overloaded, leaking, or surrounded by people begging to climb aboard.
This was better.
No one was screaming from the shore. No bodies floated past us, and Chenghai hadn’t packed weapons beneath the seats in case someone tried to steal the motor.
At least, I didn’t think he had.
I leaned forward and checked beneath the bench.
There was a knife.
Of course there was.
Chenghai watched me find it. "It came with the boat."
"Did the sunscreen come with the boat too?"
"No."
"So you did pack a weapon."
"It’s a knife."
"That’s usually what people call those."
He reached beneath the bench, moved the knife behind his seat, and pulled me back against him before I could keep searching.
His mouth touched the top of my head.
I let the knife go.
The sun warmed my legs while the life jacket made the rest of me sweat. I tugged at the straps until Chenghai helped me loosen them.
"You can take it off," he said.
"You told me the lake was deep."
"It is."
"And you think removing the thing keeping me alive is a good plan?"
"I’ll keep you alive."
That sounded exactly like something a large, impossible-to-kill man would say before forgetting other people sank.
I left it on.
Chenghai didn’t argue. He only opened another bottle of iced tea and handed it to me.
We stayed in the middle of the lake until the fruit was gone and the sun climbed higher. The boat turned slowly beneath us, showing me the same trees from different directions.
I started to understand why he had brought me here.
There was nothing for him to drive, move, fix, or carry. Nothing for me to kill, feed, hide, or pretend I hadn’t noticed.
We only had to sit there.
I reached for Chenghai’s hand and placed it back on my stomach when it slipped away.
His fingers spread beneath my tank top.
That was better.
I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes.
The water made small sounds against the boat. Chenghai’s thumb moved over my skin, and the metal bench became almost comfortable after I shifted half my weight onto him.
I might have fallen asleep.
When I opened my eyes again, the boat had moved closer to a quiet section of the shore. Trees leaned over the water, covering it in shade, and tall grass grew between the rocks.
Chenghai was watching me.
"How long was I asleep?"
"Not long."
That could have meant anything.
I rubbed my face and sat up. "You should’ve woken me."
"Why?"
"So I didn’t drool on you."
He looked down at the damp spot near his shoulder.
Damn it.
I wiped it with my hand, which only made it larger.
Chenghai caught my wrist before I tried again. He kissed my palm and kept holding it.
"You could’ve lied," I muttered.
"You would’ve checked."
That was true.
I looked toward the shaded water near the shore. It was clear enough that I could see rocks beneath the surface, along with several tiny fish moving between them.
"Are there big fish?"
"Probably."
"How big?"
Chenghai shrugged.
That wasn’t helpful.
I leaned over the side to look more closely. The boat tipped with me.
Chenghai’s arm snapped around my waist and pulled me back against him.
"I wasn’t going to fall."
"You were halfway out."
"I was looking."
"You can look from inside."
He shifted me onto his lap before I could try again. My legs settled over his, and his arms stayed around my middle.
It was harder to fall out that way.
Probably his plan.
A fish jumped near the boat.
I jerked.
Chenghai’s chest moved against my back.
"Don’t laugh."
His mouth pressed against my shoulder, but I could feel it.
"I thought it was bigger."
"It was this long." He held his fingers a few inches apart.
"It jumped aggressively."
"That isn’t a thing."
"It is now."
The fish didn’t return, which proved it knew I was right.
Chenghai moved my hair away from my neck and kissed the skin beneath it. His mouth stayed there, warm and slow, while his hand slid beneath my tank top.
The boat rocked gently under us.
I leaned back and let my head rest against his shoulder.
His fingers moved over my ribs, then lower again, never rushing toward anything. It felt less like he was trying to start something and more like he wanted to keep touching me while we sat there.
I liked that too.
After a while, I turned enough to face him. The bench made it awkward, so Chenghai lifted me and settled me sideways across his lap.
I wrapped one arm around his shoulders.
"You really didn’t plan anything else?"
"No."
"No hidden island?"
"No."
"Fishing?"
"No."
"Swimming?"
"If you want."
I looked over the side again.
A dark shape moved beneath the boat.
I tightened my arm around Chenghai.
"We’re not swimming."
His mouth curved against my cheek.
The shape turned, and a small turtle surfaced near the back of the boat.
I stared at it.
Chenghai started laughing.
I shoved his shoulder, but he only pulled me closer and kissed me before I could complain.
The turtle watched us for a few seconds, then disappeared beneath the water.
I stayed on Chenghai’s lap after it was gone.
It was safer there.
He reached for the bag, pulled out two sandwiches, and handed one to me while keeping his other arm around my waist.
We ate in the shade while the boat drifted closer to the trees.
For once, nothing was the whole plan.